Magnetic tape is now widely used for various recording purposes, and at least some such uses have necessitated development of systems and methods whereby information stored on the tape can be located and recovered. This is particularly important where computer-generated information, for example, is to be stored on the tape.
To aid in recovery of information on the tape, various techniques have been heretofore devised, and some search techniques have required the use of elaborate external devices, as well as using some type of identification marking on the tape. Techniques now known, however, have not proved to be completely satisfactory in achieving rapid and reliable searching for information on the tape, and this has been particularly true when a helical scan arrangement has been utilized for recording data on the tape.
Known techniques have, for example, failed to provide a system or method capable of accurately and reliably determining information locations on the tape and/or have failed to provide a system or method capable of searching at speeds faster than normal playback. Searching at normal playback speeds is obviously disadvantageous since the time required to find a particular record is of the same order as that required for reading the entire tape until the record is found.